January looks set to be the month of the Ice Cream Sandwich update and the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime is just one of the bevy of devices that will be getting its Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade in the new year.

Internal sources at Asus have confirmed to Digital Versus that Android 4.0 will be making its way to the much-anticipated tablet-cum-notebook in early 2012, although the Transformer Prime will initially ship with Android 3.2 (Gingerbread – festively apt).

The Asus Transformer Prime UK release date is still under some contention however, with Q1 of 2012 looking the most likely for us Brits, so sadly there’ll be no swanky 4.5 star-rated Android tablet under the Christmas tree.

But if it means that we’ll get the Transformer Prime with Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box, then we’ll be happy.

Prime rib

Ice Cream Sandwich is the first Android OS to bring tablets and smartphones in line, and, Google hopes, puts paid to that pesky fragmentation issue that’s plagued the platform for some time.

We’re not massively familiar with Digital Versus but since Google’s already released the ICS code to manufacturers and Asus is holding the Transformer Prime up as the bastion of Android tablets, January 2012 seems like a sensible guestimate for the tablet to receive the update.